They did not know what to do then. They were fairly baffled. The plebes had entered the trap—and here was the result!
"Oh, if we only hadn't been fools enough to send those invitations!" was their thought.
Meanwhile dance after dance passed, girl after girl was "out of it." There is always a scarcity of girls at a place like West Point. There are always sure to be more cadets at every hop than there are partners, and with those three vile plebes sending three to the wall every dance—and the prettiest and most liked ones, too—things soon began to arrive at a crisis. It looks funny to see the pretty girls sitting and the ugly ones dancing; and every one began to see that the plebes were having decidedly the best of the bargain. They were dancing with whom they pleased; most of the cadets were soon unable to dance at all, finding it necessary to hang about the doorway and discuss the situation.
It was a distinct triumph for the plebes; even the yearlings could not deny that, and that made them all the angrier.
Ten dances had passed; by actual count there were thirty girls "out of it," and something less than twenty still left to the cadets. And then the matter came to a head.
Cadet Lieutenant Wright, a first class man, captain of the football team, and a hop manager for his class, caused the trouble. Urged by all his desperate classmates and urged still more by the spectacle of Mark's dancing with a certain sweet creature who had hitherto devoted all her energies to making herself charming to him, he stepped forward in the middle of the dance and with his badge of manager upon his coat, touched Mark upon the arm.
Mark halted abruptly. The whole room stared.
"Mr. Mallory," said the lieutenant, "the cadets who are giving this hop request you to leave the floor."
Mark's face turned white; he bit his lip savagely to choke down his anger, and when he spoke at last his voice was hard and calm.
"The cadets who are giving this hop," he said, drawing the invitation from under his coat, "invited me by this to come. I shall consider your remark, sir, as a personal insult, for which you will be called upon to answer at Fort Clinton."